


In Orbit

by madwomanwithabox



Series: It's A Process [4]
Category: Incredible Hulk (2008), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M, Mild Angst, Science Boyfriends, Science Bros, preslashy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-26
Updated: 2012-06-26
Packaged: 2017-11-08 15:09:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/444515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madwomanwithabox/pseuds/madwomanwithabox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a code to follow when it comes to the things that live in the dark. It's a code for men like Tony and Bruce, with industrial sized monsters armed with weapons of mass destruction. It's a code to protect yourself, to protect those around you...and sometimes, just sometimes, it's okay to break the code.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Orbit

**Author's Note:**

> More Tony feels. More not being sorry and regretting nothing and some angst because I love to torture fictional people.
> 
> I just want to take a moment and thank every last person who's been so very kind by:
> 
> 1) reading my hackneyed crap  
> 2) giving me kudos for my hackneyed crap  
> 3) leaving such wonderful, sweet, and encouraging comments about how much you have enjoyed my hackneyed crap.
> 
> You're all beautiful people, and I adore you endlessly. Basically? I write this because you're goading me into it. And your kind words have almost convinced me that I'm NOT a fannish hack. You're all superheroes for that. ARC reactors and shredded purple pants for all. ;p
> 
> And the usual disclaimers? Muses belong to Marvel, this has no beta, blame me if it sucks big sweaty donkey balls and all that good stuff.
> 
> Read on. Srsly, the voices in my head are ADORABLE this time. XD

Tony and Bruce had a lot more in common that a simple love of advanced physics in all its forms. Most of it came out early on: the same crap brand of instant coffee (the kind Bruce used to drink before he OD’d on gamma rays that made caffeine a no-no), the same stupid periodic table jokes, the same love of all things YES (guilty pleasure for Tony, listening standard for Bruce), and a firm belief that advanced manipulation of the basic structure of subatomic protein nucleotides was a massive pain in the ass, fuck whatever the latest scientific journals had to say.

The biggest thing they shared didn’t come out right away, and that was the nightmares.

Tony knew Bruce didn’t sleep well, they often crossed paths in the lab when one of Tony’s usual late night terrors chose to visit him in his bed, in the shape of Yensin’s dying words or Rhodey carrying him to his work station for a fresh palladium core or watching a nuclear warhead detonate inside an alien spaceship and realizing he wasn’t even going to die on his own goddamn planet, just floating in some alien sector of space...

It was the third night running after the encounter with General Ross that Tony realized they were both being kept up by the same thing.

Tony didn’t ask what they were about. That violated the code of fear, because talking about it meant reliving it, and reliving it was...well. Neither of them had the kind of nightmares that could be expunged by a little late night psychoanalysis over ice cream and warm milk, or in their case, rehashing the stubborn fucking protein nucleotides being used for the plasmic converter, so talking about it was just pointless self-flagellation. Tony refused to torture Bruce, Tony didn’t want to share, and Bruce didn’t ask any questions, nor did he offer any information.

He did, however, enter the lab on the fifth straight night with a hot toddy for himself and a cup of the crap-nasty herbal tea Bruce favored. He walked right over to Bruce’s work station, set the cup down, and deliberately let his shoulder brush Bruce’s back as he crossed over to the projection table without saying anything. It was a hot drink and a moment of human contact...it took the edge off, Tony knew. For him, it was usually a warm body in the night (Pepper in recent months, until they ended things amiably and she started dating Happy) and a cup of the strongest espresso he could find to keep him awake for the rest of the night...but he’d settled on the hot toddy as a compromise, to at least pretend he might be able to get back to sleep. He was trying. He really, truly, honestly was trying, for himself and for the team.

Tony slept peacefully for the next three nights after that...and based on the state of the lab when he entered in the mornings, he knew Bruce did the same for at least two of them.

He started asking JARVIS to locate Bruce when the nightmares woke him, and if Bruce was up, always entered the lab the same way after that: a hot drink for each of them, and on the rare occasion when he was the first to be woken screaming from a sound sleep, Bruce would return the favor when he finally shuffled in. He wasn’t quite as subtle, however, giving Tony’s shoulder a warm squeeze instead of that discreet brush of body heat.

It took all Tony had not to break that code and let it all come out when he felt those blunt fingers through warm cotton or the thick pile of an old flannel robe that used to belong to his father and comforted him through the worst of a particularly rough night. When Bruce touched him, it took effort not to shatter, not to come undone and let those strong, unremarkable, amazing hands contain the pieces.

They kept up the routine for nearly three months, whether they were in New York or Malibu, working quietly and separately, leaning on each other in the muted light of a darkened lab until Tony found the strength to return that comforting touch as best he knew how.

“Banner! Wanna be productive, long as we’re here?”

Bruce had looked up, startled...but possibly sort of grateful as he shrugged and left his work station to join Tony at the projection table.

From that night on, they both headed for the center of the room when one of them came in with toddies and tea, and dove into this strange sort of orbit around each other filled with accidental touches and invasions of personal space that came from reaching for pens and into projections and slapping hands away from things they didn’t want touched. The messy, jostling closeness kept the monsters at bay, and Tony didn’t know if Bruce had any fucking idea just how grateful he was for that...more grateful than when he saw Rhodey in the desert, more grateful when he dropped the vibranium core into his new reactor for the first time and realized he wasn’t going to die, more grateful than when he sat at a table with five other beaten and exhausted superheroes with barely enough strength left them to eat their stupid shawarma, but doing it anyway because they were together and nobody had died.

Tony was more grateful for Bruce in those moments than he was for his own fucking life.

One night JARVIS was running a set of calculations for them, leaving nothing but the still quiet of the lab and the soft glow of the holographic projector...and Bruce’s shoulder touched Tony’s as they stood side by side. It didn’t move. Tony didn’t want it to.

“What are yours about?”

“Don’t.” Tony froze as Bruce’s voice rang out like a shot in the stillness, quiet and coaxing while his shoulder was against Tony’s, warm and gentle and so promising it made his chest hurt.

“Tony.”

It was a breath, not even a real word but it was for him and nobody else. His eyes fell shut as he tried to cope, tried to keep it in...

“Afghanistan.” The word was quiet, but choked, literally torn from his throat by gentle, beseeching hands.

“The caves?...”

Tony shook his head, staring hard into the shapeless patterns produced by the projection table as JARVIS worked.

“Golmira.” He replied, throat closing around the words, even as they flowed out of him. “I died in the desert, the caves were hell. The nightmares don’t come in my sleep, they’re there every time I close my eyes. What happened to me...lives never mattered before, they couldn’t. _That_ was how I slept at night, no life mattered...not even mine. Not until I lost it. I came back, and my life mattered, I was going to do something with it...I promised him I would. Then I heard about his village, Golmira, and _every_ life mattered. Not just mine, all of them, even the lives I took...the lives I _enjoyed_ taking when I gave Ten Rings the finger...”

Tony trailed off, blinking hard. His jaw hurt from grinding his teeth, and somewhere along the line the press of a shoulder turned into a warm hand cupping the back of his neck, squeezing and squeezing _hard_ , keeping him grounded, reminding him he wasn’t there, he was _here_ locked in orbit around Bruce and JARVIS and the projection table. Safe, dark, quiet...the monsters couldn’t get in here.

“I dream I’m flying over the desert, and I can see every face, hear every voice saying ‘Don’t waste it. Don’t waste your life, Stark.’ That’s what Yinsen said to me before he died, and every voice of every person alive is saying it to me.” He whispered, the words coming easier this time as Bruce’s thumb dug into the side of his neck with a sliver of nail...that was good, that was _here_ and not _there._ He couldn’t smell smoke and sand and recirculated air inside the suit, just soap and skin this close and that craptastic stupid herbal fucking tea.

No one said anything for a long moment. Tony couldn’t have been more grateful, and found his head tipping back, leaning into Bruce’s hand, the heat of it slithering down his spine and pooling in his chest behind the cold metal of the reactor that kept him going.

“I remember in my dreams.”

Tony rose from the strangely peaceful stupor Bruce’s hand against his neck, turning to face him. “What?...”

“The Other Guy...I remember in my dreams. New York, watching you fall. I don’t...remember catching you, but I remember running and leaping. I don’t know what he wanted, I didn’t know at the time and I was terrified...”

It was Tony’s turn to reach out. They faced each other now, a hand on the back of each other’s neck, squeezing, grounding...holding on while they broke the code of the dark and relived the root of their nightmares.

“You...neither of you...will hurt me. I know it. I believe it.”

Bruce nodded, shutting his eyes and letting his forehead fall against Tony’s. There was no General Ross or Fury this time, just them...touching, warm and safe and still wildly afraid.

“I won’t let either of us hurt you. I promise.”

“Told you...I trust you.”

“I wasn’t talking about the Other Guy.”

Tony couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe...but the lab was dim, and the monsters couldn’t get to them in their safe orbit around protein nucleotides in the dark. No one could touch them, no one could see, JARVIS wouldn’t tell or poke fun...they were safe.

Tony was safe as he pressed his face against Bruce’s shoulder and let himself shatter just a little, let those strong, unremarkable, amazing hands contain the pieces.


End file.
